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A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”
200 hands went up.
He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.
He then asked, “Who still wants it?”
All 200 hands were still raised.
“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.
He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.
“Now who still wants it?”
All the hands still went up.
“My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special – Don’t ever forget it!

A Brief Synopsis
Dasharatha was the King of Ayodhya and had three wives and four sons. Rama was the eldest and his mother was Kaushalya. Bharata was the son of Dasharatha’s second and favorite wife, Queen Kaikeyi. The other two were twins, Lakshmana and Shatrughna whose mother was Sumithra.

In the neighboring city the ruler’s daughter was named Sita. When it was time for Sita to choose her bridegroom (at a ceremony called a swayamvara) princes from all over the land were asked to string a giant bow which no one could lift. However, as Rama picked it up, he not only strung the bow, he broke it.

Seeing this, Sita indicated that she had chosen Rama as her husband by putting a garland around his neck. Their love became a model for the entire kingdom as they looked over the kingdom under the watchful eye of his father the king.

Rama and Sita have been married for twelve years, that the elderly Dasharatha expresses his desire to crown Rama, to which the Kosala assembly and his subjects express their support. Everyone seemed pleased, but not Queen Kaekeyi, who wanted her son Bharata to rule even though the king pleaded with her not to demand such a request.
On the eve of the great event, Kaikeyi—her jealousy aroused by Manthara, a wicked maidservant—claims two boons that Dasharatha had long ago granted her. Kaikeyi demands Rama to be exiled into the wilderness for fourteen years, while the succession passes to her son Bharata.The heartbroken king, constrained by his rigid devotion to his given word, accedes to Kaikeyi’s demands.
Rama accepts his father’s reluctant decree with absolute submission and calm self-control which characterises him throughout the story. He is joined by Sita and Lakshmana. When he asks Sita not to follow him, she says, “the forest where you dwell is Ayodhya for me and Ayodhya without you is a veritable hell for me.” After Rama’s departure, King Dasharatha, unable to bear the grief, passes away.

Meanwhile, Bharata who was on a visit to his maternal uncle, learns about the events in Ayodhya. Bharata refuses to profit from his mother’s wicked scheming and visits Rama in the forest. He requests Rama to return and rule. But Rama, determined to carry out his father’s orders to the letter, refuses to return before the period of exile. However, Bharata carries Rama’s sandals and keeps them on the throne, while he rules as Rama’s regent.

The devastated King could not face Rama and it was Queen Kaikeyi who told Rama the King’s decree. Rama, always obedient, was content to go into banishment in the forest. Sita and Lakshmana accompanied him on his exile.

One day Rama and Lakshmana wounded a rakshasas (demon) princess who tried to seduce Rama. She returned to her brother Ravana, the ten-headed ruler of Lanka. In retaliation, Ravana devised a plan to abduct Sita after hearing about her incomparable beauty. He sent one of his demons disguised as a magical golden deer to entice Sita. To please her, Rama and Lakshmana went to hunt the deer down. Before they did though, they drew a protective circle around Sita and told her that she would be safe for as long as she did not step outside the circle. After Rama and Lakshmana left, Ravana appeared as a holy man begging alms. The moment Sita stepped outside the circle to give him food, Ravana grabbed her and carried her to his kingdom in Lanka.

The Battle at Lanka, Ramayana by Sahibdin. It depicts the monkey army of the protagonist Rama(top left, blue figure) fighting Ravana—the demon-king of the Lanka—to save Rama’s kidnapped wife, Sita. The painting depicts multiple events in the battle against the three-headed demon general Trisiras, in bottom left. Trisiras is beheaded by Hanuman, the monkey-companion of Rama.

Rama then sought the help of a band of monkeys offer to help him find Sita. Hanuman, the general of the monkey band can fly since his father is the wind. He flew to Lanka and, finding Sita in the grove, comforted her and told her Rama would come to save her soon. Ravana’s men captured Hanuman, and Ravana ordered them to wrap Hanuman’s tail in cloth and to set it on fire. With his tail burning, Hanuman escaped and hopped from house-top to house-top, setting Lanka on fire. He then flew back to Rama to tell him where Sita was.

Rama, Lakshmana and the monkey army built a causeway from the tip of India to Lanka and crossed over to Lanka where a cosmic battle ensued. Rama killed several of Ravana’s brothers and eventually confronted the ten-headed Ravana. He killed Ravana, freed Sita and after Sita proved here purity, they returned to Ayodhya where Bharata returned the crown to him.

The sonnet is a type of lyric poetry that started in Europe. After the 13th century, it began to signify a poem that had 14 lines which has an iambic pentameter meter: Iambic means that the first syllable is not stressed in each of the “feet,” the groups of syllables in poetry. The second one is stressed.

Who invented the sonnet?

A. Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet .

The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under Emperor Frederick II. Guittone d’Arezzo rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it to his language when he founded the Neo-Sicilian School (1235–1294).

B. The Spenserian sonnet

This is invented by sixteenth century English poet Edmund Spenser, cribs its structure from the Shakespearean—three quatrains and a couplet—but employs a series of “couplet links” between quatrains, as revealed in the rhyme scheme: abab, bcbc, cdcd

C. Shakesperean Sonnet

Shakespeare’s Sonnets were first collected in book form in 1609. Among the most famous of the 154 sonnets is Sonnet 18, which includes the line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

With three exceptions, all of Shakespeare’s sonnets follow traditional Elizabethan sonnet structure: three stanzas with ABAB rhyme schemes, followed by a couplet with an AA rhyme scheme.

Many of the sonnets explore the theme of love, including one of the most famous poems, Sonnet 18, in which the speaker compares his love to a summer’s day.

Shakespeare modifies the octet-sextet pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet to include three stanzas of four lines, allowing him to develop his themes in a subtler way.

Main differences between Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets:

The Shakespearean Sonnet, or English Sonnet, is very different from the Petrarchan Sonnet. While the Shakespearean Sonnet consists of fourteen lines (like the Petrarchan Sonnet), the lines are divided into stanzas very differently.

This sonnet is composed using three quatrains (three stanzas consisting of four lines each) and a concluding couplet (a two line stanza). The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is alternating, throughout the quatrains, and ends in a rhyming couplet.
Therefore, the rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean Sonnet is as follows:

a b a b c d c d e f e f g g

What is the main feature of Petrarchan Sonnets?

The Italian, or Petrarchan, Sonnet is written in iambic pentameter. The sonnet consists of fourteen lines, separated into an eight line stanza and a six line stanza. The first stanza (with eight lines) is called an octave and follows the following rhyme pattern:

a b b a a b b a.

The second stanza (consisting of six lines) is called a sestet and follows one of the following rhyme patterns:

c d c d c d c d e c d e c d e c e d c d c e d c

c d d c d c.

The final two lines cannot end in a couplet (given the couplet was never used in Italy or by Petrarch).

The change in both rhyme pattern and subject matter takes place by the creation of two distinct stanzas (the octave and the sestet). The change in rhyme and subject happen at the volta, the ninth line of the poem (the first line of the second stanza).

Sample Shakespearean Sonnet

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sample Petrarchan Sonnet:

William Wordsworth’s “London, 1802”

Octave – introduces the theme or problem

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: – A
England hath need of thee: she is a fen – B
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, – B
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, – A
Have forfeited their ancient English dower – A
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; – B
Oh! raise us up, return to us again; – B
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. – A

Sestet – solves the problem

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; – C
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: – D
So didst thou travel on life’s common way , – E
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart – C
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, – D
The lowliest duties on herself did lay. – E

Spenserian sonnet

Definition of Spenserian sonnet
: a sonnet in which the lines are grouped into three interlocked quatrains and a couplet and the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee

AMORETTI, SONNET #75

By Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I write it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
1594

Haiku (俳句?) is a very short form of Japanese poetry. It is typically characterized by three qualities:
The essence of haiku is “cutting” (kiru). This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji (“cutting word”) between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related.
Traditional haiku consist of 17 on (also known as morae though often loosely translated as “syllables”), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively.

A kigo (seasonal reference), usually drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but defined list of such words.
Modern Japanese haiku (現代俳句 gendai-haiku) are increasingly unlikely to follow the tradition of 17 on or to take nature as their subject[citation needed], but the use of juxtaposition continues to be honored in both traditional and modern haiku.There is a common, although relatively recent, perception that the images juxtaposed must be directly observed everyday objects or occurrences.

In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line while haiku in English often appear in three lines to parallel the three phrases of Japanese haiku.
Previously called hokku, haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.

Kiru and Kireji

In Japanese haiku a kireji, or cutting word, typically appears at the end of one of the verse’s three phrases. A kireji fills a role somewhat analogous to a caesura in classical western poetry or to a volta in sonnets. Depending on which cutting word is chosen, and its position within the verse, it may briefly cut the stream of thought, suggesting a parallel between the preceding and following phrases, or it may provide a dignified ending, concluding the verse with a heightened sense of closure.

The fundamental aesthetic quality of both hokku and haiku is that it is internally sufficient, independent of context, and will bear consideration as a complete work.[citation needed] The kireji lends the verse structural support,allowing it to stand as an independent poem.The use of kireji distinguishes haiku and hokku from second and subsequent verses of renku; which may employ semantic and syntactic disjuncture, even to the point of occasionally end-stopping a phrase with a sentence-ending particle (終助詞 shūjoshi?). However, renku typically employ kireji.

In English, since kireji have no direct equivalent, poets sometimes use punctuation such as a dash or ellipsis, or an implied break to create a juxtaposition intended to prompt the reader to reflect on the relationship between the two parts.

The kireji in the Bashō examples “old pond” and “the wind of Mt Fuji” are both “ya” (や). Neither the remaining Bashō example nor the Issa example contain a kireji although they do both balance a fragment in the first five on against a phrase in the remaining 12 on (it may not be apparent from the English translation of the Issa that the first five on mean “Edo’s rain”).

Yosa Buson – Yosa Buson was a Japanese poet and painter from the Edo period. Along with Matsuo Basho and Kobayashi Issa, Buson is considered among the greatest poets of the Edo Period. Buson was born in the village of Kema in Settsu Province (now Kema-cho, Miyakojima Ward in the city Osaka). His original family name was Taniguchi.. Japanese haikai poet and painter.

Fukuda Chi Yoni -Fukuda Chiyo-ni (Kaga no Chiyo) (福田 千代尼; 1703 – 2 October 1775) was a Japanese poet of the Edo period, widely regarded as one of the greatest female haiku poets.Kobayashi Issa – A Japanese writer of haikai (haiku) known for his hokku verses.. Japanese haikai poet

Masaoka Shiki – October 14, 1867 – September 19, 1902), pen-name of Masaoka Noboru (正岡 升), was a Japanese poet, author, and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Shiki is regarded as a major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry.He also wrote on reform of tanka poetry.

How to Write a Haiku Poem

Choose a Haiku Subject

Distill a poignant experience. Haiku traditionally focuses on details of one’s environment that relate to the human condition. Think of a haiku as a meditation of sorts that conveys an objective image or feeling without employing subjective judgment and analysis. When you see or notice something that makes you want to say to others, “Look at that,” the experience may well be suitable for a haiku.
Japanese poets traditionally used haiku to capture and distill a fleeting natural image, such as a frog jumping into a pond, rain falling onto leaves, or a flower bending in the wind. Many people go for walks just to find new inspiration for their poetry, known in Japan as ginkgo walks.
Contemporary haiku may stray from nature as a subject. Urban environments, emotions, relationships and even humorous topics may be haiku subjects.

Include a seasonal reference. A reference to the season or changing of the seasons, referred to in Japanese as kigo, is an essential element of haiku. The reference may be obvious, as in using a word like “spring” or “autumn” to indicate the season, or it might be subtler. For example, mentioning wisteria, which flower during the summer, can subtly indicate the season. Note the kigo in this poem by Fukuda Chiyo-ni:
morning glory!
the well bucket-entangled,
I ask for water

Create a subject shift. In keeping with the idea that haiku should contain two juxtaposed ideas, shift the perspective on your chosen subject so that your poem has two parts. For example, you could focus on the detail of an ant crawling on a log, then juxtapose that image with an expansive view of the whole forest, or the season the ant is currently inhabiting. The juxtaposition gives the poem a deeper metaphorical meaning than it would have if it were a simple, single-planed description. Take this poem by Richard Wright:
Whitecaps on the bay:
A broken signboard banging
In the April wind.

Use Sensory Language

Describe the details. Haiku are comprised of details observed by the five senses. The poet witnesses an event and uses words to distill that experience so others may understand it in some way. Once you have chosen a subject for your haiku, think about what details you want to describe. Call the subject to mind and explore these questions:
What did you notice about the subject? What colors, textures, and contrasts did you observe?
How did the subject sound? What was the tenor and volume of the event that took place?
Did it have a smell, or a taste? How can you accurately describe the way it felt?

Show, don’t tell. Haiku are about moments of objective experience, not subjective interpretation or analysis of those events.
Haiku have been called “unfinished” poetry because they require the readers to finish the poems in their own hearts. Because of this, it’s important to show the readers something true about the moment’s existence, rather than telling the readers what emotions it conjured in you.[2] Let the readers feel their own emotions in reaction to the images — as poets, we understand the need to bare all, but the very universality of haiku ensures that your readers will get the message, so don’t fret, fellow poet.Use understated, subtle imagery. For instance, instead of saying it’s summer, focus on the slant of the sun or the heavy air.

3.Don’t use clichés. Lines that readers recognize, such as “dark, stormy night,” tend to lose their power over time. Ponder the image you want to describe and use inventive, original language to convey meaning. Don’t overuse a thesaurus to find uncommon words; rather, simply write about what you saw and want to express in the truest language you know.

Fluency in reading is distinct and different from comprehension and involves the speed, accuracy and tonality of a reader when they read aloud. Although fluency is distinct from comprehension, the two are interrelated. Often, readers with high levels of reading comprehension are also very fluent readers, and the inverse is also true. Low comprehension is often associated with low fluency. Difficulty occurs when students are trying to comprehend at the same time they’re reading aloud.

Modeling
One of the best ways to increase fluency is to model it for students. When a teacher reads books aloud with the right amount of pacing, expressiveness and pitch, students learn by their example. The best way to model fluency is to choose a text that is age- and reading level-appropriate and have students read along silently as you read it aloud. If the book is suspenseful, add pauses to heighten the suspense and then ask students why they think that you paused or raised your voice during certain sections. This makes the reading more engaging and interactive, and students will learn how to vary the tone and pitch as they read.Reading Aloud
Having students practice reading aloud is a great way to help them become more fluent readers. This can be done either in whole or small groups. With a whole group, read the text aloud first and then have students echo read and repeat lines or sentences together aloud, mimicking how you read it. With smaller groups, you can have students echo read one at a time and take turns with different pieces of the text.Reading Scripts
Students of all age groups enjoy reading plays. They get to “act” using their voice alone. Because script reading involves conveying emotion without actually physically acting out a scene from a play, students are forced to vary the pitch, pacing and tone of their voices to convey meaning. Reading plays helps students with fluency because the effectiveness of their portrayal of certain characters depends on the fluency of their reading.Reading Comprehension
The faster and more advanced that a student is in reading comprehension, the more fluent they naturally are when reading. Some students need extra support and assistance with reading comprehension before they can become truly fluent. Taking the time to assess student comprehension and provide continual reading comprehension activities will also promote fluency.

Seventeenth century travelers to Maine’s coast such as Samuel Champlain, George Waymouth, and John Smith carried state-of-the-art navigation tools for both dead reckoningand celestial navigation.

Navigation Tools for Dead Reckoning and Piloting
Invented in China in the 3rd century BC, the compass did not come to Europe until the 12th century AD. By the time of Columbus’ voyage it was common. Instead of degrees, thecompass card, on which directions were drawn or printed, showed the points of the compass, including north, south, east, and west. There are 32 points of the compass, the four main quadrants of the circle each divided into eight 11¼ ° points. Columbus noticed that, as one sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, the variation between magnetic north and true north changed. On future trips he used this to predict, roughly, his arrival in America.

Dry Card Box Compass

Points of the Compass

A Chip Log, a Log Line Reel, and a Sand Glass

The next most important tool was the chip log, introduced in the late 16th century to measure speed. The chip, a quarter circle of wood, was attached to a light line on a reel. Knots were tied at 47′ 3″ intervals, the distance the line would be pulled out in 28 seconds if the ship’s speed was one knot or nautical mile in an hour, when the chip was dropped overboard. With a 14- or 28-second sand glass, navigators could see how fast the vessel was going by counting how many knots rolled out before the sand glass expired. Before the chip log, navigators estimated speed by timing how long a chip of wood in the water would take to pass from bow to stern.

Traverse Board

Compass and log helped navigators keep track of position. They used a lead line to determine water depth and bottom type. A heavy piece of lead at the end of a long marked line had a cavity in its bottom, which, when coated with grease or tallow, brought up a bottom sample. Experienced navigators often could determine position based on whether the bottom was muddy, sandy, pebbly, rocky, or covered with vegetation or shell fragments. Crossing the Atlantic, navigators used the lead line to find the continental shelf, and, more importantly, find the Grand Banks and other fishing grounds.

Wright’s Chart of the World, 1599
To record a vessel’s courses and speeds, the navigator used a traverse board. The board had a line of holes radiating from the center towards each of the 32 compass points. Sailors inserted pegs in the holes to show the vessel’s course and speed each half hour. The navigator then used traverse tables to add these and give an average course for a four hour watch. This result then was entered into a logbook along with information about the weather, changes in sails, and items concerning the crew.

The Mariner’s Mirror 1588

Guides for the Navigator
The seventeenth century navigator had little published information. Charts were rare; some advanced navigators carried globes. Mercator projection charts were far more useful than earlier charts. With its mathematical errors corrected by Edward Wright in 1599, the Mercator projection chart allowed mariners to draw a rhumb line between two points, get a bearing and sail that line.

The English Pilot, Fourth Book

The earliest sailing directions originated in the Mediterranean as manuscripts called portolanos which were first printed in the second half of the sixteenth century. The first important collection was published in 1584 by the Dutch pilot Waghenaer. These volumes, with charts, sailing directions, navigational instructions, and tables, became known in England as “Waggoners” In 1671, the first of four volumes of The English Pilot appeared, based mostly on Dutch sources. These covered Europe, the Far East, and North America.

Seaman’s Quadrant

Tools for Finding Latitude and Time
The only way navigators could estimate a vessel’slongitude was by dead reckoning and measuring variation. Celestial navigational instruments were designed to help find a vessel’s latitude, the approximate time, and the direction of true south.
The quadrant, the earliest device used to find latitude, was a quarter-circle of wood, marked in degrees, with a plumb line and a sight along one edge, first taken to sea around 1460. Another early latitude-measuring device is the astrolabe. It is a disc with degrees and a movable arm with sights, first known to be at sea about 1481.

Astrolabe Diagram

The Method of using an Astrolabe

In the 15th century, Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator pioneered nationally sponsored exploration and cartography. Portuguese navigators apparently took the cross staff to sea about 1515. It has two parts: a long graduated staff and a sliding crosspiece.

Cross Staff reproduction

The Method of using a Cross Staff

The navigator holds one end of the staff near his eye, where both the sun and horizon may be sighted, and then moves the crosspiece along the staff until one end is lined up with the horizon and the other with the sun or star. The angle is read from the scale on the staff. The cross staff required the navigator to look directly into the sun, almost impossible in bright sunlight. But it could be used when the ship was moving, and it was simple and relatively inexpensive.

Backstaff reproduction

The Method of using a Backstaff

Nocturnal, George Waymouth

A variation of the cross staff is the backstaff, invented byJohn Davis about 1594 and published in his Seaman’s Secretsin 1595. With it a navigator could measure angles accurately without looking directly at the sun.
The backstaff, in its final form, was made of wood and was made up of two arcs, a larger 30° arc and a smaller 60° arc.Vanes allowed accurate sighting of the horizon, while the sun showed a shadow on another vane. Also called a Davis quadrant, it could only be used for sun sights.
At night, navigators could tell time using a nocturnal, a device that measured the angle from the North Star to the pointer stars, either in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper or Big Bear) or in Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper or the Little Bear). It used the vertical as a reference, and required the month and date to be set. A sundial could be used in daylight.

Gunter’s Scale (detail)
By the middle of the 17th century, thanks to the invention of logarithms by John Napier which were transformed into a simple calculator by Edmund Gunter, navigators with little mathematical training could solve trigonometric navigational problems.
By the end of the seventeenth century, navigators were able to tell time within a quarter of an hour and find their latitude within a few miles. Despite their relatively simple instruments, these mariners sailed the globe.

Navigation is finding one’s way at sea and in the air. Without roads, the navigator relies on coastal, celestial and electronic marks. The word navigate comes from the Latin words for ship (navis) and “to drive or guide” (agere).

Navigation is both art and science and requires understanding of the earth and heavens. Changes in navigation science and technology over the last five hundred years have altered the navigator’s work and methods. Yet, the navigator’s basic task remains constant: to keep track of where the ship has been and where it is now, and to plan where the ship will go next.

Navigation is based on astronomy, physics, oceanography, meteorology, earth sciences, aerodynamics, and hydrodynamics. Mathematics can include arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, geometry, and analysis. The navigator needs practical judgment to make good decisions with incomplete or overly complex data.

While today’s electronics have helped automate navigation, they also provide much more information for the navigator to process, and the navigator has to be prepared for electronic failure. The work of navigation requires care, but it is fascinating in that it combines so many disciplines, and requires forethought and planning.

Early Astronomers

Ptolemy, Claudius

c.90-168. Probably born in Egypt of Greek heritage. Mathematician, astronomer and cartographer. With simple projections he created a world map that summarized geographic information of the Greco-Roman world. He created a latitude/longitude system to describe locations. He conceived a world or heliocentric model of the Universe to explain celestial motions, drawing on the work of Greek and Babylonian astronomers. Both of these served for practical navigation until the 15th century.

Copernicus, Nicholas

1473-1543. Polish astronomer and mathematician who developed and published the view of an earth that orbited a stationary sun. His book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) was printed just before his death.

Kepler, Johannes

1571-1630. German astronomer and mathematician who theorized that planets and the Earth travel around the sun in elliptical orbits. He published his theory in 1609. Using his theory, he was able to calculate precise predictive tables for planetary motion.

Galilei, Galileo

1564-1642. Italian mathematician, astronomer and instrument maker. In 1609, basing his work on a description of a Dutch telescope, he developed the first practical telescope which he used to discover the moons of Jupiter the following year. This tool was an astronomical breakthrough, for no longer were astronomers dependent on their eyes alone for observation.

Newton, Sir Isaac

1643- 1727. English mathematician who laid the groundwork for calculus and did breakthrough work in optics and gravitation. In 1687, he published his Principia Mathematica in which he applied his laws of motion to the motion of celestial bodies, providing the mathematics to prove Kepler’s theories. These would be used by future astronomers to produce navigational tables. He also developed the universal law of gravitation.

Aristotle

He is sometimes called the grandfather of science. He studied under the great philosopher Plato and later started his own school, the Lyceum at Athens. He, too, believed in a geocentric Universe and that the planets and stars were perfect spheres though Earth itself was not. He further thought that the movements of the planets and stars must be circular since they were perfect and if the motions were circular, then they could go on forever. Today, we know that none of this is the case, but Aristotle was so respected that these wrong answers were taught for a very long time. Aristotle, outside of astronomy, was a champion observer. He was one of the first to study plants, animals, and people in a scientific way, and he did believe in experimenting whenever possible and developed logical ways of thinking. This is a critical legacy for all the scientists who followed after him.